


Chronicles of a better man - Eleventh Doctor

by SHADOWSQUILL



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-29 17:47:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19405144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SHADOWSQUILL/pseuds/SHADOWSQUILL
Summary: "We never forget our first Doctor." The TARDIS never forgot any of them and is still ready to go back on adventures with his many incarnations. [This is a reedition of "Brèves de TARDIS". I'm gathering all the one-shots by Doctor for it to be easier.]





	1. Sirens

The Doctor was standing there, in the middle of that big concourse which used to be full of frenetic agitation, in a deep state of stupor. Someone could have talked to him or act foolishly in front of him and he wouldn’t even have noticed it. He failed. He had seen what was going to happen and decided to act before it left a mark in History. The event wasn’t indelible when he had caught sight of it. Now, it was, just like the seven, eight and nine of January or the thirteen of November 2015 and he was saddened because he couldn’t change a thing, because he couldn’t save all these people. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to but he couldn’t believe it. He needed to believe there was hope, that as long as it wasn’t a fixed point in time, he could still change that horror, that sad day in the history of the terrestrial world. That planet was a little his and to see it sinking into the chaos of the human madness was deeply hurting him. He failed, once again.

He knew, however, when he had jumped outside the TARDIS, that it was already too late. The feeling followed him while he was running until he was out of breath in the building. He had misled everyone with his psychic paper. He had said he was a part of the Territory Security and that he had received an information about a suspicious behaviour. Somehow, he had warned these people but it hadn’t been enough. Nobody had seen the threat. Nobody, except the Doctor, knew what was going to happen in the next few minutes. He had been even more vigilant and had acted as discreetly as he could: he had tried to find and to control the threat but he had been too slow, way too slow, and he regretted it. He felt guilty because he couldn’t do something in time. Him, master of time and space, had crossed eyes with the martyr. He hadn’t had the time to open his mouth. The explosion resounded, followed by a second one and a third one.

First, there was the silence. A deafening silence responding to that big crash which had shaken the whole building. The time seemed to have stopped for a moment. Nothing moved, there was no noise. There was nothing else than that silence charged with meanings and the Doctor was thinking about the worse of them. That silence was proper to Death. It was prowling around, ready to reap the souls of the fallen people. That silence was little by little filled with an unpleasant whistling. It was imperceptible at first but, quickly, it filled the area. Omnipresent and unstoppable, it rapidly became unbearable. However, there was no way to get rid of it. That whistling was the only move perceptible in the air. The Doctor got up. He had fallen because of the explosion. He stumbled, silently. He seemed to be the only one able to move. The whistling was dazing him and his eyes couldn’t see anything else than some white for as far as the eye can see when he opened it. The thing lasted a few minutes and his sight came back progressively.

Then, the blood. Scarlet stains were spreading everywhere. He could smell the copper flavour. It was so heady that it was becoming sickening. As his eyes were getting used to the light, he could see the fluid. Nothing seemed to have been spared by the deluge of the red rain. Walls, ground and ceiling were covered with it as if they had been the witnesses of a paintball game, as if they had dealt with the repeated assaults of a reddish paint jet. Except it wasn’t paint. Except it wasn’t a game. It was a battlefield and the ground was drinking the blood of the fallen, those fallen who didn’t ask to be there at the wrong place at the wrong time, those fallen who had wrongly thought they were safe and who had walked on an active landmine by accident. They were laying here and there those fallen of a war that was none of their business. Mixed with them, there were the winners we could hardly recognize in that bloody sight. They were the winners only because they were laughing at that morbid show to which they were a part of only to leave a bloody mark in History.

The cries and the move finally came. The time had taken back his flow and everything was rushing. The yells were following each other, echoing, stopping, beginning again, choking with tears. And everybody was running. Everybody was running to a shelter, a hope, an answer. Everybody was bumping into the danger, the obviousness, the silence. They were running in all directions, panicked. The sirens of the emergency services, of the police were mixing with the cries and the agitation. The sirens were wailing without a break, were mixing with the whistling, with the cries of panic and despair. The Doctor closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. He held back a retching. The smell of Death was fluttering too strongly in the air. The agitation increased every minute passing by. The perimeter was cordoned off; the emergency services were converging from all quarters and people were evacuated one by one. The Doctor wasn’t moving. Standing in the middle of this madness, he stayed still and stared at the scarlet stains with an absent look. He had failed. And now, he was struggling not to be sick in front of that sight.

“Sir, are you hurt?”

Yes, hurt, he was but not like the medic was thinking. When the humans only saw a new bombing, he was reminded of the war he had so much tried to forget. He had been a soldier once. And he had been a coward. He had sworn it would be the last time. And he was there, in the middle of a slaughter he had wanted to prevent, while a medic was taking care of wounds he wasn’t even aware of, while people were crying their lost friends and family, while everyone was looking for answers which would never come. There were no answers to the why of such a bombing. It was only cowardice, influence, disproportionate dreams. There were fearless people who wanted to create a terror that would erase their name for a cause that was still unclear. There were no answers to the why that place, why that day, why those people. There were only whys and no one knew the answers.

“‘Why?’ Such a small question for such big problems.”

“Doctor?” called out Amelia Pond, a ghost of his past he was the only one able to see.

“See why optimism is the best of all the answers?” _He replied._ “I’ve always been an optimist lost in a world of pessimism. I’m trying to bring some happiness, some hope. I’m trying to repair the wrong, to prevent the slaughters. I’ve defended this planet with my hearts and soul. Men are stuck in a vicious circle, condemned to do the same mistakes again and again, to never learn anything from them. There is no hope and they remind me every day of the mistake I committed and that I’m trying so hard to repair. I keep on hoping that one day everything will change. I keep on hoping that one day they will understand and, when it’ll be the case, peace will be possible. Facing the men’s madness, facing their inextinguishable thirst of blood, I oppose this tiny hope which, alone, can defeat the fear. They won’t win because we won’t give in to panic.”

The Doctor looked one last time at that stinging fail, at that madness no one understood, not even him. He was wearing the marks of that deadly bombing. Then, full of sadness and pain, he turned around and walked away. He vanished into the crowd to get back to his TARDIS following the steps of his own ghost…


	2. Killing in the name

The Doctor picked her up in the middle of nowhere. He was travelling in the TARDIS for days with no purpose when the old girl landed on that no man’s land. It was dark and there was nothing but gravel, wrecked wire fences and tufts of grass. He could hear people yelling in the dark but couldn’t understand what they were saying. It wasn’t a matter of language or accent. They were just too far to be understood. It was just yells. Angry yells. He didn’t want to know what those angry people wanting. He didn’t face to face them. He didn’t want to be the target of some crazy humans once again. Why the TARDIS had landed here then? The old girl always had a reason for her unplanned landings. She never took him where he wanted to go, but always where he needed to be. So, why did he need to be here? Who needed his help so badly for the TARDIS to land in the middle of nowhere, possibly in the middle of a battlefield?

He took a few steps outside the TARDIS, looking around. The voices were getting closer, but they were still far enough for him not to understand the reason of all that anger. He took a few more steps. Everything was still around him. There was nothing and no one around. That was when he found her. He almost walked on her, and just tripped over her body. She was laying there among grass and gravel, completely still. He thought for a moment that she was dead, but he realised she was still breathing when he knelt down to check on her. He didn’t have much time to think about what to do because the voices were getting nearer and nearer. Now, they were close enough for him to understand what they were saying. They didn’t sound like friends of the girl. They were looking for her. They wanted her dead. So, he gathered her in his arms and brought her into the TARDIS.

He carefully put the girl down on the console room floor and sent the time ship in the vortex to be as far as the unpleasant people as possible. She didn’t look hurt. There was no wound; nor blood on her. She just was unconscious for a reason or another, and the TARDIS seemed unable to run a scan on her. He had to wait until she was awake to have some answers, to know why he had to pick her up, to save her. So, he sat there, waiting for her to wake up and wondering why the TARDIS had wanted him to save her when he could have been anywhere in time and space. He observed her while she was still unconscious. She showed no sign of waking up anytime soon. That could be worrying, except her vital signs were all good. It was as if she was sleeping, but she wasn’t. The Doctor could feel it. There was something weird about her, and he couldn’t tell what. And he hated not knowing.

The girl was young. About twenty years old. She was wearing black from head to toes: black shirt, black pants, black boots, black gloves. She was even wearing a bulletproof vest and a weapon. Which left the Doctor thoughtful. Why would someone so young be dressed and armed like that? He had to admit he was intrigued by the mystery offered to him, but he was also feeling uneasy. He never liked being around weapons, and the fact that she was wearing one in his TARDIS made him nervous. He had to get rid of it. He slowly put his hand on it to pull it out of its holder, but as soon as he touched the butt of the gun, a hand brutally caught his wrist and didn’t let go when he tried to get free from the hold. Before he could even understand what was going on, he was down on the ground, his arm locked in his back, and someone was holding him so firmly he couldn’t move.

“Try to take that again and I’ll break your arm for good. Understood?”

“Oi!”

“I said, understood?”

“Yeah!”

“Who are you?”

She wasn’t going to let go of him no matter how hard he would struggle. She was only tightened her hold on his wrist whenever he moved and his position wasn’t comfy at all. For someone who were out of it just seconds ago, she was reacting really quickly. She was holding him tightly against the ground and he couldn’t do anything against her. She was way stronger than she seemed to be.

“Could you just free me? That’s a painful position.”

“Who.are.you?”

Her voice was harsh and threatening. It looked like she had no time to waste with his question or his lack of comfort. The Doctor heard a metallic noise and something cold was placed against his neck. He swallowed. The gun. She was pointing a gun on his neck. He knew he should have gotten rid of that thing earlier.

“I am the man who just saved your life!” he replied hurriedly. “You were laying there and they were approaching! I took you in my ship before they could see us!”

The cold pressure of the weapon against his neck suddenly disappeared. She was setting him free. She let go his wrist and stepped back from him. The Doctor got up, fixed his bow tie and faced the girl. She was still aiming her gun at him but she had taken some steps back. He raised his hands to show that he wasn’t gonna do anything. Last time a girl brought a gun on board, things had gone wrong.

“Why did you save me?” she asked him, distrustful.

“I’m the Doctor. That’s what I do. I save people.”

“Seriously.”

“I thought it was the right thing to do. Can you put that thing away from me?” He pointed at the gun in a careful move. “I-I don’t like guns. Especially when someone is threatening me with them. It’s very unpleasant.”

She watched him closely, and he knew she was gauging him. She wasn’t trusting him at all. Which was normal. He wouldn’t trust himself either on certain things. She seemed to decide that he wasn’t a threat though and she ended up putting her gun back in its holster.

“What’s your real name, Mr Coward?”

“I’m not… Oh, whatever. Like I said, I’m the Doctor.”

“Doctor who?”

“I’ll never get tired of this one,” he exclaimed with a bright smile.

However, she wasn’t smiling at all. Her lips didn’t even twitch. She was a hard one, or she had no humour at all. She was scary, but why in the world did he feel the need to save her? There was something wrong about this whole story, and the mystery to solve was making him all excited like a kid on Christmas morning. He was gonna find out who she was and why she was so important for the TARDIS to drive him straight to her. He looked at the console. The girl didn’t move. She was still looking at him as if he was crazy. Which he truly was if he had to be honest.

“You seem to be a weirdo.”

“I am.”

“Tell me your real name.”

He looked back at her. She suddenly appeared so small, so vulnerable, almost weak in those surroundings she didn’t know, and the Doctor felt sorry for her. Somehow, he felt that she was special, that she _had_ something special, and that he had to protect her at all costs. He wanted to come closer but stopped when she put her hand on her weapon. She didn’t trust him. At all.

“Look, my name is really Doctor. I don’t go by any other. What’s yours?”

“Not supposed to say it.”

“Not gonna tell it to anyone.”

“They call me Hunter.”

“Terrible.”

“Said the so-called Doctor.”

She put her hands in her pockets and seemed to be looking for something. She finally found what she was looking for and pulled it out of her pocket. It looked like a phone but the Doctor realised it wasn’t one when she used it to scan him just like he would have done with his sonic. Her poker face suddenly showed some surprise and maybe some fear as the results were displayed on the screen. She put the thing back in her pocket, checked out the watch she was wearing – which seemed similar to the wrist device Jack was always wearing – and then, she disappeared without a word or a look at him. It left him speechless and surprised beyond words. Who the hell was this girl? And how did she manage to teleport herself away from the TARDIS?

He had been wondering for days about what he had to do. The girl was acting like a special agent or someone from the human task forces. This was strange to him since she looked so young, but there was something about her. Something he couldn’t explain, something the TARDIS hadn’t even been able to identify. She wasn’t fully human. There was something, and he had to know. She had said they were calling her ‘Hunter’. Who were they? Why did they call her ‘Hunter’? What did that name mean? And the way she disappeared… She must have had a vortex manipulator or something. It meant she was using alien technology, and this was a subject he was really good about. She could have been from Torchwood, but everyone knew him in Torchwood, and he would have known. He was always checking on the agency since he had lost Rose Tyler because of their activities.

So, it was something else, but what? How many alien organisations there were now on Earth? And from which century was she from? He would say the twenty-first century, or somewhere around it. He had to find her, one way or another, and ask her who – or what – she was and who she was working for. How to find her though? She could be anywhere thanks to that wrist device. He had no idea where she had come from, and where to find her. He just knew that he had found her in a no man’s land, probably where she had been on a mission that had turned wrong. It had just been with a bit of luck, and a huge help from the TARDIS who had led him straight to her. _The TARDIS had led him to her_. The old girl had to do it.

“Hey, sexy, do you mind helping me? I need to find her again. I know you want me to do something for her. It’s better if she’s back on board, right?”

If the TARDIS had been able to, she would have sighed. He was finally asking for her help. After a few seconds, she purred. She knew how to find the girl. She knew how to find _anyone_ in time and space. She went through the vortex as soon as her thief asked for the girl. She was following the marks of her last passage in the galaxy. Every alien technology was leaving a mark when it was used and the TARDIS was trucking the one ‘Hunter’ had left when she disappeared from the ship. Even if the TARDIS never took him where he wanted to be, he knew that she was going to take him to the girl because that’s where he needed to be. She was where he wanted and needed to be. She was his new mission, the new mystery he had to solve, and he was as intrigued as excited by that new adventure to come.

That was why he jumped out of the TARDIS as soon as she landed. He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and scanned the dark place. It looked like a basement and there was almost no light. He heard some noises and walked in their direction. He ended up in another dark room with a lot of computers. They were all on, and some were looking for information. Information about him he soon realised. There was nobody there though. He focused on the screens. There was nothing new about him there. For the internet, he was just a story, an imaginary friend, a myth. It was always funny to see and read but his smile stayed stuck and the Doctor froze when something cold touched his neck. He hadn’t heard anything or anyone coming. He flipped to face the girl who was aiming a gun at him. Once again.

“You shouldn’t have come back,” she told him in a cold tone before shooting him.

When the Doctor woke up, his head was pounding hard and his body was hurting so much that he thought for a second that he was regenerating. Which couldn’t happen since he was on his last incarnation. He remembered being shot. She had shot him in the chest. It burnt like hell. He groaned and tried to rub his chest, only to find out he was tied up a chair. He couldn’t move. ‘Hunter’ was sat in front of him and was playing with his sonic screwdriver.

“Why did you shoot me?” he mumbled, struggling to stay awake.

“I left your ship to keep you safe. Why did you come back?”

“I can’t stay away from troubles.”

“That’s what I’ve heard. How did you find me?”

“You’re using a vortex manipulator. It leaves marks. I just had to follow them.”

“I’ll know it for the next time.”

“My ship wants me to do something for you.”

“Your ship should have told you why they were calling me ‘Hunter’. It should have told you what’s going to happen now.”

“Tell me.”

“I’m gonna kill you, Mr Coward,” she retorted.

Her voice was emotionless, and he swallowed. She was serious. He didn’t know how but she was really gonna kill him, and he couldn’t regenerate anymore. How was he going to get out of here? She was gonna take things slow for sure. She would have killed him already otherwise. She wanted him to be awake and to feel anything she would do to him. Why would have she shot him with some sedative if it wasn’t to have him under control?

“I’d rather be a coward than to kill someone again.”

“I know your story, Doctor Coward. Open your ears. Gonna tell you mine. Only the dead can hear it.”

“Gonna tell me why they call you ‘Hunter’? And who they are?”

“My name is Dawn. Dawn Mysa. I’m part of the B.A.M. It stands for Brigade of intervention for Aliens Manifestations. Every time an alien is detected on Earth, we’re called to act.

“Just like Torchwood.”

“Oh, you wish.”

She got up and walked close to him. She caught a medical box and put it on a chair before opening it. He wondered what she was up to. She was choosing a slow death for him obviously. She turned around to face him, and he saw that she had two needles in hand. She grabbed his arm rather brutally – he noticed that he wasn’t wearing his jacket anymore and that the sleeves of his shirt were rolled up – and tied a rubber band on it. She did a taking of blood on him without a word and put it in a fridge behind him.

“What was that for?”

“My DNA had been modified when I was younger,” she continued, not answering his question. “I’m still human, but I have high developed senses. Hearing, sight, strength, sense of smell, speed. ‘Hunter’ is the diminutive for ‘hunting dog’. That’s what I am to them. They recruited me and trained me when I was twelve. Then, they put me on the field, and they asked me to track down every alien lifeform. I track them down, I catch them and bring them to my boss.”

“What happens to them?”

“They study them, and they die.”

“That’s murder!”

“That’s war. And you, Doctor, are the most important piece of their collection.”

The Doctor didn’t answer, quickly thinking about what to say to get out of this tricky situation. He was in a very bad situation. The girl was really willing to kill him. He had remarked that she was still wearing black from head to toes and he had seen the weapon that never seemed to leave her side. She put the box down on the ground and sat on the chair, waiting for him to react to her words. He was confused. She had said something about keeping him safe, and now she would just kill him. That just didn’t make any sense.

“They were looking for me.”

“They already have a Dalek and it told them you were its worst enemy. Actually, it said you were the worst enemy of all the living species out there. That’s how you’ve become the most wanted alien of the Brigade.”

“And your trusted a Dalek?” the Doctor asked with obvious scorn in his voice.

“They did. Not me. Actually, I’ve began doubting about the real intentions of the Brigade a while ago. That’s why I left when I found out you were _the_ Time Lord.”

“But…”

“That was a way to protect you. If they catch you, you’re dead. All those murders are not right.”

“And I screwed everything up.”

“Right.”

“There is something about you…”

He couldn’t finish his sentence because he was interrupted by an explosion that shook the whole room. He looked at Dawn. She was biting her lower lip. She was worried and this wasn’t a good sign. She knew who they were and didn’t plan on telling anything to him. Were they gonna run? Or getting caught?

“You gotta go,” she said urgently.

She released him from his ties and handed him the key of his ship. Then, she forced him on his feet without any effort – very strong indeed! – and pushed him out of the room. She rushed to the fridge and grabbed the blood samples she had taken from him. She caught a backpack and almost hit him in the dark because he hadn’t moved.

“You’re coming with me.”

“I said go! You’re the target! Not me!”

There was another explosion and everything trembled harder. Dawn took the Doctor’s wrist and forced him to run. If he was the target, why was she saving his life? Why were they attacked in what seemed to be her house or hidden place? He clearly wasn’t the only one they wanted to see dead. Maybe that was what the TARDDIS wanted him to find out. Maybe they were meant to save each other’s lives. Suddenly, Dawn pinned him to the ground as one last explosion resounded, destroying everything around them. It was critical. The room was falling down around them, hurting them with rocks and glass. The Doctor got up, caught Dawn and ran to the TARDIS. He launched the machine and waited until they disappeared into the vortex before turning to her. She was standing in the middle of the console room, confused, dizzy, covered with rocks dust.

“Basically, run.”

She had a small smile – the only one he could have gotten from her until now – but it was a smile anyway, and he smiled back at her. That’s when she collapsed on the ground, unable to say or do anything more.

When she opened her eyes, she was still confused and she was lost because she didn’t know where she was. The noises, the smell, the surroundings were unknown to her. The only thing she was sure of was that she wasn’t in the B.A.M. headquarters. Had she managed to run away in the end? Had she saved the Doctor? She didn’t remember anything after the last explosion. Her memory was a black hole after that. Where was she? She sat up slowly, though her body was incredibly sore, and looked around. She noticed the wounds on her body, wounds that had been taken care of. She felt too weak to stand so she just remained sat there. She knew she wasn’t in danger anymore. She could feel that she was safe but stayed on alert. Especially when she heard footsteps. She knew exactly who they belonged to.

“That’s the second time you’re saving my life.”

“How did you know it was me?” he asked, coming in the room.

“Your footsteps. And your smell. Told you I had high developed senses.”

“I owe you one.”

“And I owe you two.”

“They want you dead too.”

“I’ve been suspecting it for a while. They never tried so hard.”

“They poisoned you and destroyed your home. That’s hard enough.”

“What?”

“I did some tests. When I’ve found you, your blood had poison in it. Whoever was running after you, they would have succeeded in catching you if I hadn’t been here.”

It had taken the TARDIS more time than usual to find out what was wrong with the girl when they had found her since there was something weird about her, and that was blocking the scans. But now, he knew a part of the truth. Modified DNA. Quite interesting.

“Good thing that I’m immune to most of the known poisons,” she sighed “You know you can’t run away from them, right?”

“I’ve seen worse. I’ve survived worse.”

There was no explanation. There was no need of an explanation. That Brigade already knew his story by heart. If Dawn was their hunting dog like she had told him earlier, she obviously knew everything about him. That was creepy, but humans needed to know, to study and to archive everything that seemed new or weird to them. And occasionally, destroy what wasn’t in accordance with what they knew and were used to it.

He forced her to rest a few days while he was piloting the TARDIS in and there in time and space to stay hidden from whoever was wanting their deaths. Dawn had said they couldn’t run away from them, but he was the master when it came to run away from troubles. He could hide anywhere in time and space and erase himself from every possible database, but somehow, they always found a way to get to them and they always had to run away before getting caught or killed. When Dawn felt better, she spent her time on her laptop, one of the many things she was keeping in her backpack, a backpack she was always taking with her when she was on the run. One day, she even put her laptop on the console and did something with the sonic screwdriver she had never given back to him.

“That thing doesn’t have Wi-Fi. It only works in here.”

“You know, I was wondering…” he started, not saying a thing about the Wi-Fi she was talking about. “Since we’re stuck together because they’re tracking us down in time and space…”

“I’m not becoming your companion,” she cut him short.

“But why? People always say yes.”

“I’m not people. You’re gonna bring me back home.”

“Too dangerous. And you don’t have a home anymore.”

“Don’t care.”

“They want you dead.”

“Actually, they want _you_ but I’m not gonna let that happen. Which why they’re also running after me. So, you’re gonna scramble my memories, take me back on Earth and run while I’ll have your back.”

“I don’t like this.”

“I still don’t care.”

“Not gonna do this.”

“You’re gonna do this, whether you like it or not.”

This was her final word on the matter. That was her decision and he wouldn’t go against it. She left him with his mumbling about how he didn’t want to do such a thing and kept working on her laptop. She silently disappeared in the TARDIS when she was done. Later, he would understand that it was all part of a plan and that if he had understood it sooner, things would have ended up in a better way.

The Doctor was clearly furious that morning. Dawn had tricked him. She had forced him to blur her memories of him. She could easily remember everything about him but no one would be able to see their meeting and her plans to protect him. No one would be able to access the memories she had of him. Even if they used torture. He knew it was for the best, he knew she was saving his life but he couldn’t bear the way she had chosen to do it. She was becoming the target, and he didn’t want her to get killed for him. He wanted to protect her and travel with her but there was no way to run from the Brigade anymore, and that made him as furious as the fact Dawn would sacrifice herself to keep him safe from them. Now, he knew what would happen to them if they ever get caught. He understood why she wanted to quit, why she said it wasn’t right. But she couldn’t quit. She was too precious to them.

When she went away in the TARDIS after he had blurred her memories, he was so angry that he hit the console, much to the TARDIS’ displeasure. He didn’t know where his ship had just landed but he needed to walk, to run, to yell at the universe so he walked out without a word. He regretted that decision the second they all jumped on him, the second he found himself tied down and under the watch of half a dozen men in black. They were not leaving yet because they were looking for Dawn. The Doctor was hoping that she wouldn’t show up, but he knew it was useless. She was stubborn and the TARDIS would let her know he was out, and her high developed senses would tell her the danger there was, but she wouldn’t step back. She would jump in the trap, even if that meant them taking her back and do some things he’d rather not imagine to her.

The Doctor swore when he saw her coming out of nowhere and fought with the men of the Brigade to free him. Half a dozen men against just a woman. She was having the upper hand on them all surprisingly. She managed to knock them out long enough to free him. They were about to run away once again when a few other men came as backup. Dawn pushed him and fought against them to give him time, but she wasn’t as lucky as the first time. They were all against her and they knew all her weaknesses. The Doctor started running, but he couldn’t let her. He turned around and came back to try and help her. They had gotten her. They had pinned her down to the ground and they were firmly holding her and tying her up so tie she wouldn’t be able to run away from them anymore. She saw him before the men did. Her face turned angry and sad all at once.

“Run, you coward!” she yelled at him.

But he couldn’t move. A man was coming to him. He was about to surrender because he just didn’t want to let her alone in this. He never had any plan but he could always help. He could have gotten them out of the Brigade whatever it would take. No one could ever lock him up somewhere and hoped that he would just stay there. He always managed to find a way out. However, before he could understand what was going on, he found himself back in the TARDIS. He wanted to get back to Dawn, to give her some help with some tricks of his, but the hub was locked and he couldn’t stop the machine. This was an automatic travel, and the coordinates were locked. She had planned it all with the TARDIS, and while he was angrily hitting the doors, he noticed the vortex manipulator around his wrist. She had saved his life. Again. And he wasn’t able to do the same.

“I’ll come back,” he promised, more to himself than anyone else. “I swear. I will get you out of here.”

From now on, his only mission would be to try over and over again to get her out of the claws of the Brigade and to bring her to a safe place. He really hoped he would be able to do so.


	3. Open

Open. The breach was open again.

How much time had passed by since the last time it happened? Rose couldn’t remember. Time was going faster in that universe, and she felt so tired. But the breach was open again, meaning she could get back to her original universe, back to her original Doctor. She knew she would meet him on the other side because he would have noticed the breach too and would work on closing it again. And she couldn’t wait until she got to see him again.

She was quite old now. How many days, weeks, months, years had passed for him? Was he still the same man? She had been married to his metacrisis self for a while but the poor man had developed a disease from living in the wrong universe he didn’t feel comfortable in. Neither did she to be honest. She had never belonged there and had wanted to go back to the other side after losing her dear husband.

So, despite the time that had gone by, she ran to Torchwood, to the white wall, and used a dimension cannon, praying for it to work. She felt the familiar dematerialisation of her body and the rough landing. And she opened her eyes, she found herself facing a changed man. A tall brown man with green eyes and a bow tie. Her Doctor. No matter what face he had, he would always be hers. Before he could realise what was happening, she hugged him tight. Now that she was back, they could have their forever. Thanks to an open door.


End file.
